'Oh. I simply meant,' Bracken said carefully, 'that I'm going to do everything I can to pull Schrenk out, if it's not too late. We need him out because he's a danger to Leningrad but I don't mean that. I want him out because I respect him too.' He waited five seconds. 'I thought you'd like to know.' 'Oh for Christ's sake, spare me the auld lang syne. I'm going to be lucky to get out of this place alive, let alone take someone else with me. What makes you so sure he's in Moscow anyway?' 'It was in the briefing information. ' 'Well the K haven't got him, I know that.' There were more children not far away and I hoped to Christ they weren't going to start screaming, like that man in the cell. 'Repeat?' Bracken stopped dead again to watch me. 'They thought I knew where he was. They offered me an exchange deal.' 'Dezinformatsiya?' 'No. They haven't got him, and they want him, as badly as we do.' In a moment Bracken said: 'If he's free, why hasn't he reported?' 'I didn't say he was free. I'd say he was dead.' He shut off again for a time. Then: 'Killed?' 'How should I know? They chewed him up in there and he just about got away with his skin and then someone did a snatch on him at the clinic in Hanover and it wasn't the KGB and there hasn't been a squeak from him since and that's all I know, it's all anyone knows.' Hit me on the side of the head without any warning and exploded in a white shower all over Bracken and he laughed boomingly and bent down and got some snow and pressed it hard and slung it back at them, laughing all the time, good cover, while I stood there with my nerves screaming through my head, not a terribly good sign, scared of a snowball now, maybe if I could get some sleep tonight, some real sleep without that bastard yelling at me from - 'All right?' Bracken was watching me closely. 'Yes. I'm all right.' 'Come on,' he said and began walking the other way. 'Look, I'm going to be in signals with London most of the night and I'll ask for a complete screening background on every man we've got in Moscow. If there's the slightest doubt about any of them I'll get them recalled and kept out of here: ours is the only operation we've got running in this field.' He was talking briskly, confidently, and for a moment he got me thinking he wasn't worried. 'Meanwhile I've got three people working on your last signal, although the present findings are that there are seventeen Pyotr Ignatovs resident in Moscow - not that it means a lot because if he's a Judas in our group he'll be using an alias, obviously. One of the ten Natalya Fyodorovas in this city works in a personnel department of the Kremlin, which could match your info; she's described as attractive and possibly a swallow for the KGB. We're still digging, and you'll have anything we turn up.' He was walking closer again, nudging my arm sometimes, trying to make contact and pull me out of the aftershock. 'I'm going to find out if Schrenk is still alive but first I want to nail this Judas before he can wipe us out in Moscow. But if you feel there's nothing more you can do for us at this stage I can smuggle you into the Embassy and get you taken care of. One of the girls has had nursing experience and of course you -' 'I didn't say I wanted a nurse.' 'No, don't misunderstand me -' 'The streets are dangerous,' I told him through my teeth. 'I don't know how long I could last.' He stopped again, his hand on my arm. 'I quite realize that. Why don't you come in for a while and think it over? You'll be perfectly safe at the Embassy. Then see how you feel in the morning.' I looked away. 'There's no time to hole up. You know that.' 'We could send for someone else to come out.' He stood watching me with the light of the city bouncing off the snow and reflecting in his eyes. 'We'd quite understand,' he said gently, 'if you asked us to do so.' Croder had spoken like that . They knew how to keep me running, as long as my feet could move. 'You're risking London,' I told him, 'if you keep on pushing me, you know that? They're looking for me and they won't stop till they find me.' 'We know what the risks are,' Bracken said quietly, 'and what we have to do about them.' He spoke with confidence, and my mind opened a degree to what he was saying. 'But if you could do just one thing for me, we'd all be so much safer. I need to get a look at this man Ignatov, without his seeing me, so that I can tell you whether or not he's working in our cell. Do you think you could arrange that, somehow?'